9 Die in Kashmir Elections Violence

MUJTABA ALI AHMAD

Published
7:00 pm CDT, Monday, September 30, 2002

Associated Press Writer

PAHALGAM, India (AP) _ Suspected Islamic militants unleashed a series of attacks Tuesday, killing at least nine people as polls opened for the third round of elections in India's troubled Jammu-Kashmir state.

Nine people were killed in an attack on a passenger bus near the Pakistan border in Kashmir's Kathua district, while thousands of Indian soldiers patrolled the Himalayan region's militant heartland to secure polling stations.

While the first two rounds of voting for the 87-seat state assembly were relatively peaceful and turnout was strong, at least 13 attacks on polling booths or security forces by midday hampered turnout Tuesday.

Pakistan-based Islamic groups that dispute India's authority to hold the elections have vowed to disrupt them by killing voters. More than 130 political activists, candidates and civilians have died since the polls were announced by the Indian government in August.

The militants and Kashmiri separatists claim the elections are rigged to favor the pro-India, ruling National Conference party. Federal and state officials reject those allegations.

The bus was traveling to the region on a highway from the Indian capital of New Delhi when the attack occurred near a roadside market just before polls opened in Kathua district, 45 miles south of Jammu, the state's winter capital.

Villagers said militants hijacked a minivan at a border village and drove it into a utility pole near the open-air vegetable market. The gunmen then jumped out and began firing weapons and hurling grenades at the bus before fleeing.

The other attacks Tuesday occurred in an area about 40 miles south of Srinagar, the summer capital.

Police said an Indian paramilitary officer was injured when a bomb went off in Pulwama. A similar explosion in Anantnag district caused no casualties, police said. Later, police fired tear gas at some 50 anti-election demonstrators.

In Shopian, at least nine polling stations had been attacked by noon, though there were no immediate reports of casualties. Guerrillas also lobbed a grenade at the town market, but no one was injured, police said.

Elsewhere, suspected rebels opened fire on Indian paramilitary officers at a polling station in Wagat. Close by in Soimoh village, rebels fired on a polling booth from a hill. There were no injuries in either attack.

In Kulgam, four people were wounded when a polling station was attacked, police said.

A local news agency said it received a message in which the militant outfit Al-Arifeen claimed responsibility for the dozen attacks on polling booths.

Al-Arifeen is a lesser-known offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militant outfit.

The group also claimed responsibility for the murders last month of the state's law minister and a leading National Conference activist.

Voter turnout by midday was mixed in the mountain villages surrounding the Kashmir Valley.

Only six voters had turned up by midmorning at a polling station in a log hut in the cold, misty mountain town of Pahalgam. Islamic militants fighting to end India's control of the Muslim-majority region are known to operate nearby.

"It is not fear, it is just the weather," insisted polling agent Mohammad Yusuf Lone.

In the village of Mattan, about 40 miles south of Srinagar, only one voter out of nearly 2,200 on the registration list had turned out to cast a ballot five hours after the polls opened.

But in nearby Laripora, dozens of villagers lined up to vote.

Mohammad Yusuf Kumhar, a 25-year-old government employee, said he and his neighbors were tired of the current administration after 12 years of "uncertainty."

"In our village, we have decided to use our vote to alter the political map of our state," Kumhar said.

Nor far away in Akad, some 30 people surrounded the car of Associated Press journalists and complained that security forces were forcing them out of their houses to vote.

"They have retained our identity cards and said that they won't return them until we show the voting marks," said Mushtaq Ahmad, referring to the ink mark drawn on fingernails by polling officials after a vote.

Some polling booths were secured with barbed wire, and most had soldiers or paramilitary troops guarding them, while armored vehicles patrolled the four districts voting on Tuesday: Anantnag, Pulwama, Udhampur and Kathua.

The state has 5.7 million eligible voters. The last of four rounds of balloting will be held Oct. 8, with results expected by Oct. 12.

Federal and state officials hope high voter turnout will deflate the separatist movement in the Himalayan state, the focus of two wars between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim the region in its entirety.

India accuses Pakistan of trying to disrupt the elections by allowing the militants to cross into the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charge and says the elections are a sham.